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Abstract

Every mobile robot needs to know where it is so everyone who does mobile robotics wants to know how inertial and satellite navigation works. These two technologies are the most sophisticated forms of navigation systems available and they complement each other very well. Applications requiring indications of highly dynamic 3D motion, excellent relative accuracy and high update rates benefit from inertial systems. Applications requiring bounded absolute accuracy for extended excursions or position estimates relative to the earth itself benefit from satellite navigation.

This decade has seen the development of inexpensive handheld global positioning systems based on reception of the GPS satellite signals, and advances in optical gyroscopes and integrated circuit accelerometers which promise to put an inertial navigation system in every automobile before the end of the next. This report is a detailed tutorial which explains the principles, practice, and issues of using these new technologies.